Читать книгу Tom Swift and his Giant Magnet - Howard R Garis - Страница 3
ОглавлениеMYSTERIOUS FORCES
Walking along a country road was an elderly gentleman, jauntily swinging a walking stick. He seemed in a hurry to get somewhere and evidently he anticipated a pleasant meeting at the end of his journey, for he smiled and murmured:
“I’ll be glad to see him again! It’s been a long time.”
Hurrying along another road, which intersected, at right angles, the thoroughfare occupied by the elderly gentleman with the walking stick, was a young man. He, too, seemed to expect a happy reunion with someone, for he could be heard to exclaim:
“I wonder what his object was in keeping me away so long? I suppose it’s some new invention that will startle the world. But I’ll be glad to see him again.”
Thus it would appear that the young man and the elderly man had some object in common, as, indeed, they had.
It is a well known fact that two persons pursuing courses which, if prolonged, tend to intersect at right angles, will eventually meet. Swinging around a clump of trees at the juncture of the two roads, the elderly man nearly collided with the young fellow.
“Bless my shoe horn, Ned Newton!” exclaimed the carrier of the walking stick. “Where are you going?”
“Well, I wasn’t intending to run into you this way, Mr. Damon,” answered Ned with a laugh.
“Nor I, you, but I’m glad we have met. Where are you going, I mean, are you headed for?”
“Tom Swift’s, of course,” Ned broke in. “And I can guess you are headed for the same place, aren’t you?”
“I am. Last night I received a note from him, saying that he would be glad to see me this morning, and I lost no time in starting out, though I had to slip away with only half a breakfast to avoid taking my wife on a shopping trip.”
“That’s nearly my story,” and Ned laughed again. “Not that I had to slip away, though. Tom seems eager to have us call.”
“He surely does. It’s no wonder, since he put a ban on us visiting him, or communicating with him, nearly three weeks ago,” Mr. Damon said. “Now the quarantine is over and I suppose he wants company. I’d say he had been working on some new invention, wouldn’t you, Ned?”
“My idea exactly. He explained to me that he wanted to be absolutely alone and unhampered while he was working out a problem, and now, I imagine, he has solved it. I wonder what it can be this time?”
“I’m eager to learn,” went on the man with the walking stick. “So suppose we hurry to his shop and find out.”
“Come on!” invited Ned. “I hope whatever Tom Swift has been working on is a success.”
“It must be or he wouldn’t invite us to call,” argued Mr. Damon. “His note to me was anything but gloomy.”
“Mine was written in a jolly mood, so from that I deduce that he has gained his objective. Well, we’ll soon know. It isn’t far now.”
The two turned from the point of meeting and pursued their way along another and less used, road that led to the plant of the Swift Construction Company, the buildings of which occupied a large area of ground on the outskirts of Shopton. Mr. Damon and Ned were soon walking rapidly down a private lane that would take them directly to the building where Tom had his personal laboratory and office, detached from the other manufacturing shops, foundries, and pattern rooms.
“How do you like my new walking stick, Ned?” asked Mr. Damon as they neared Tom’s laboratory. He held it out for inspection and Ned took it in his hands.
“Why, it’s steel!” the young man exclaimed in some surprise.
“Yes, it’s the newest thing. Hollow steel, light but strong. I used to carry a wooden stick but I broke two or three swishing at vicious dogs who seemed to want samples of my legs. So the other day I got this steel stick. It’s guaranteed not to bend or break when used on an ugly canine. I haven’t tried it yet, but—bless my handkerchief! Did you see that, Ned?”
A strange thing had happened. They were now close to Tom’s private workshop. Mr. Damon took back the steel walking stick from his companion, but no sooner had he taken it in his hands than it was snatched from them by some mysterious force. It went flying through the air and a moment later landed with a metallic bang against the side of the shop. There it remained, clinging like a dead leaf held against a wire fence by the wind.
“That’s queer!” Ned murmured. “Why did you throw your stick like that, Mr. Damon?”
“I didn’t throw it!”
“You didn’t?”
“No. You must have given it a flip, or twist, as you handed it back to me, and being of flexible steel it sprang away from me. Or rather, it was fairly pulled out of my hands.”
“I gave it no flip, or twist,” Ned protested. “I just handed it to you.”
“And the next moment it was snatched away as if someone had grabbed it from me,” said Mr. Damon. “Bless my rain-coat, Ned, but there is something uncanny about this! See how my walking stick clings to the side of Tom’s shop as if it were glued there. How do you account for that?”
For a moment Ned Newton did not answer. He looked from Mr. Damon to the stick held against the wall of the renowned young inventor’s laboratory. Then Ned glanced back at the eccentric man. If he suspected the latter of playing a trick he was disabused of that idea as he saw the serious look on his companion’s face.
“How do you account for it?” asked Mr. Damon again.
“I can’t account for it,” answered Ned in a low voice. “It must be something new in forces—something I’ve never had anything to do with before. I wonder if Tom——”
While he was speaking he and Mr. Damon saw a veritable giant of a man coming from a small building not far from Tom’s private shop. This giant carried a large piece of metal, and from the ease with which he held it, there could be no doubt of his great strength.
“Look at Koku!” cried Ned, not finishing the sentence he had begun in which he had mentioned Tom’s name. “Look at Koku!”
He pointed to the giant who appeared to be in some strange distress, or at least fighting against unseen but powerful forces. Koku seemed to be pulled along the ground against his will, for Ned and Mr. Damon noted that he was now bending back as a diver leans forward to make headway along the ocean bed against a powerful current.
“Koku!” called Mr. Damon. “What’s the matter?”
“Somebody grab hold Koku—no can see—no can feel—but somebody pull Koku!” boomed the giant in his powerful voice which matched his physique. “Somebody want this iron but Koku no let go. Master Tom he say bring iron to um an’ Koku bring!” he panted desperately.
Looking at Tom Swift’s giant helper with mingled wonder and fear, Mr. Damon and Ned beheld a remarkable scene. The unseen, strange force, exerting itself against the iron, was sliding the big man along as if he were being pulled by a rope about his waist. Desperately he clung to his burden, clasping his big arms and hands about it, and he was being carried along with it. He leaned back at an angle which would have toppled him over had not the force in front of him been exerted in an opposite direction.
“Look! Look!” cried Ned, pointing. “Koku is being pulled along like a baseball runner sliding for the home plate!”
This was indeed the case, for now, as the giant was nearer Tom Swift’s private shop, the big feet of Koku plowed furrows in the soft earth, so great was his resistance to the power pulling him.
“No let go! No let go!” roared Koku.
A moment later he was banged against the side of the building and held there, as was also Mr. Damon’s steel cane. Rather, the iron that Koku carried was held against the building and, since he obstinately would not let go, he was in the same predicament himself, being, as it were, part and parcel of the iron object.
“What does it mean?” murmured Mr. Damon, and there was fear and wonder in his voice.
“There’s something wrong here!” exclaimed Ned. “I hope nothing has happened to Tom Swift!”
“What could happen to him?” demanded Mr. Damon. “Didn’t he write us notes, inviting us to call this morning after nearly a month during which he shut himself up, almost alone, in his laboratory? If anything had happened to him he couldn’t have written those notes.”
“Those notes were written yesterday,” went on Ned in a low voice. “Nearly twenty-four hours ago. Much could happen in that time.”
“What do you mean—happen?” asked Mr. Damon, obviously worried. “Who would do anything to Tom Swift?”
“He has many enemies,” went on Ned. “And I don’t like this demonstration of mysterious forces that we have witnessed. If someone has got into Tom’s laboratory, and has Tom in his power, he may have turned the new invention against him and against us. I think it was to view his latest invention that Tom invited us to call and see him.”
“I think so myself,” agreed Mr. Damon. “This is a strange reception.”
“Strange and mysterious,” said Ned as he and his friend continued to gaze at the struggling Koku, held, with the big piece of metal, against the side of the shop, as was Mr. Damon’s walking stick. “There is only one thing to do, Mr. Damon.”
“What’s that, Ned?”
“We must go in and see what’s wrong. Come on!”
Ned started toward the shop. He had not taken more than a dozen steps, followed at a little distance by the eccentric man, when Ned uttered a cry.
“What’s the matter?” shouted Mr. Damon. “Bless my shoe laces! What’s the matter?”
For answer Ned pointed to a ragged hole in his trousers. It was newly torn, for the shredded edges of the cloth still fluttered from the force that had parted them. Then Ned pointed to a small object that had landed with a bang against the side of the shop.
“My pocket knife!” he gasped. “That same mysterious force pulled it right through the side of my pants!”
“This is terrifying!” cried Mr. Damon. “Oh, there goes my money!” he yelled, as several holes suddenly appeared in his trousers and dimes, quarters and pennies flattened themselves against the side of the shop, rattling like hail stones.
“Look! Look!” gasped Ned, and as he pointed they saw the money, the pocket knife, the steel walking stick and the big piece of metal machinery suddenly fall to the ground. Then Koku, who had been vainly exerting his strength against the unseen force, was likewise seen to fall. Whatever it was, the mysterious force was no longer operating and the objects it had taken to itself now fell by the natural pull of the earth’s gravity.
“Tom! Tom Swift!” yelled Ned in desperation. “What does it mean?”
